Where Is Miriam Joy?

It’s a fairly long time since I last took a two-week hiatus from my blog (or however long it’s been now), and while that’s not that long, and I have a policy of not apologising for absences, I nevertheless feel some explanation is required, because I disappeared without any warning.

This is therefore going to be a blog post in which I do not philosophise or muse on the use of books in a zombie apocalypse: I am going to tell you what I’ve been doing recently. A blog? Being used to tell one’s news? Shocking!

It’s getting near the end of term, which means it’s concert season for people like me who are involved in musical ensembles. After two concerts and their rehearsals last week, I managed to get out of one this week, though I also had an English mock exam yesterday (which I finished 45 minutes early, so I’m convinced I did something wrong). Concerts are huge timesucks: rehearsals, waiting around, and then performing all take longer than scheduled, and one is usually completely exhausted the next day.

I’ve been writing a lot recently. I’m working on the Victorian era science fiction novel that I told you about. As of yesterday, it has a working title, though I’m so unsure of it that I’m not going to tell you it yet, and will continue referring to it in this uncertain way. I’ve also finally named one of the alien races, who have gone over a month without having any sort of handle.

I’m participating in WriYe this year, with an ‘official’ wordcount goal of 500,000 words for the year, although an unofficial one of 600,00 — in other words, fifty thousand words every month. Like NaNoWriMo, but twelve times longer. This might sound insane for some people, but writing is very therapeutic for me, and I write fast. It’s therefore not that much of a big deal, and helps to keep me motivated. Some days it’s a real struggle to hit my daily target and I have to literally sit there adding ten words at a time. Other days I don’t hit it at all, but I make up for it the next day.

I have a spreadsheet to track my words — when they’re above target, they go green, and when they’re below they go red. I’m quite obsessive and not breaking my green streak, though sometimes it’s unavoidable.

As you’ll notice from the picture, I have a tendency to talk to myself in the ‘comments’ section, making excuses for my wordcount or encouraging myself. You’ll also hopefully notice that I’ve stayed a long way ahead of my overall goal — here I’m shown as being 60k ahead of target, but as of today’s count, I’m actually 70k ahead! (I didn’t give you the latest section due to my comments being slightly spoilery.)

So that’s what I’ve been doing writing wise. I’ve been trying to keep my wordcount consistent and not to binge write and then go for days without writing anything, but some days are better than others.

As you may notice in one of my comments, I’ve also been watching quite a lot of TV: the entirety of Being Human series five in one week (which was foolish). A couple of days ago I finally finished Supernatural series five and am now wondering why all of the shows I watch involve the devil being released and people making the stupid decision to drink blood when they know it has disastrous consequences: I think my TV needs to be more varied.

I’m very excited about Doctor Who coming back this Saturday, as Jenna-Louise Coleman looks like she’ll make an awesome companion. I’d like to know more about Clara Oswin Oswald, and am also glad that we finally have a companion who is (a) brown haired and (b) fairly short, making cosplaying her a thousand times easier for people like me!

I’m also investigating my options for university next year. I went on a visit to Cambridge a couple of weeks ago, which was very informative, and in a couple of weeks’ time I’m going to visit both Glasgow and Aberdeen, though they’re much further away which makes them less attractive to me, though I do like the courses.

With all of this I’ve been too busy to read much, and have been avoiding Goodreads because I feel like the “Currently Reading” box is judging me, though I’m now halfway through Birdsong. I so far have mixed opinions of it: it’s very graphic, and at times I feel gives too much detail. (I don’t actually need to know exactly what injuries they have, okay?)

I’ve also not been blogging because I didn’t feel I had anything worthy of a blog post, and I didn’t want to condemn you to fillers that are meaningless and a waste of all our time. However, as the Easter holidays approach as of this coming Thursday, you can expect to see me around a little more, though I’ll be working or revising through much of the break.

The green/red indicators are ‘conditional formatting’ — I put my total wordcount in, it works out how much I worked today, and if it’s above the specified amount, makes it green. If it’s below, it makes it green.
I didn’t make the spreadsheet from scratch though — it’s provided by the awesome folks at WriYe. I just made it green instead of blue because I have a weird thing about green.

I feel like you should have used the bit with the comment “Charley Is A Horrible Person, I Know” for the illustration of you post. Because 1 – it’s hilarious and 2 – I’m egotistical, ehehehe!

That said, I reckon you’ve got more than one valid excuse for not blogging. I’ve not even got the musical commitments, and my blog posts have properly gone down the pot of late. Well, not all of them, but . . . y’know. If it weren’t for my OCD on posting regularly, I’d never post at all xP

Good luck with the unis – it’s easier than it looks, trust me, I’ve been there. Worked out pretty well for me, as well, so I hope it will for you too!

I’m just like, “Shall I do ASNaC or Costume Production?” -_- Curse my varied interests…
I wanted a section that was recent to show why I haven’t been blogging – that was from early-mid February, so less relevant. Sorry. :-)

Thanks and thanks! (For reading, and for saying you’ll review, because that means a lot.)
WriYe is a very flexible year-long writing challenge, a little like NaNo but not as crazy, as you can set a very low target if you want.

I know exactly what you mean about not knowing/having anything to blog about. Wednesdays are usually my main blogging days, but the last couple of weeks I’ve hit a stump when going to type…like today. Oh, look, I’m procrastinating.

I love your spreadhseet! Mainly because I love order. But still – love how dedicated (and fast – I know: I’ve said that before) a writer you are. I myself am one of those binge writers. Though, actually, I’m almost at the end of a first draft that has been on-off for a couple of years *woop! pulls party popper*, so I’m aiming to finish it before the end of the holidays. I’ve been totally binging this week. Which is awesome ’cause I can’t normally write this much.

What course are you thinking of studying? I remember choosing uni was the hardest bit for me, especially as there’s only a handful of ‘top’ universities that do bipartite Psychology and Philosophy.